Oscar Wilde: Lord Arthur Saville's Crime

“I Don't Want to Go to Heaven. None of My Friends Are There.”

By: Oscar Wilde

Narrated by: Garard Green

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on the October 16, 1854 in Dublin, Ireland. The son of Dublin intellectuals, Oscar proved himself an outstanding classicist at Dublin, then at Oxford. With his education complete, Wilde moved to London and its fashionable cultural and social circles.

With his biting wit, flamboyant dress, and glittering conversation, Wilde became one of the most well-known personalities of his day. His only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, was published in 1890, and he then moved on to writing for the stage with Salome in 1891. His society comedies produced enormous hits and turned him into one of the most successful writers of late Victorian London. While his masterpiece, The Importance of Being Earnest, was on stage in London, Wilde had the marquess of Queensberry, the father of his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, prosecuted for libel.

The trial unearthed evidence that caused Wilde to drop his charges and led to his own arrest and trial for gross indecency. He was convicted and imprisoned for two years' hard labor. It was to break him. On release he left for France; there, he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol in 1898. He died destitute in Paris at the age of 46, sipping champagne a friend had brought with the line, "Alas I am dying beyond my means." Here, we publish the classic short story "Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime", that even if listened to once deserves another listen to fully appreciate his mastery of the written word.

Public Domain (P)2018 Miniature Masterpiece